Product Manager

Product & Design Product Strategy Written case

A structured product manager hiring process built around a written product case that separates outcome owners from feature-factory candidates.

Why this works:

A written case shows real prioritization and discovery judgment, not interview polish
Independent team review keeps the outcome-ownership bar from drifting between interviewers
Two focused interviews cover product sense and execution without a bloated loop

Best for: Startups hiring their first PM, once the founder is the roadmap bottleneck
Timeline: ~2 weeks
Candidate effort: 2-3 hours

Process stages

This template includes 7 stages that candidates move through:

Application

Submit Application

Tell us about a product you shipped: the outcome you were trying to move, how you decided what to build, and what happened to the metric.

Written Product Case

Questionnaire

A short written case you can complete at your own pace. We’re reading for how you reason about customers, outcomes, and trade-offs, not for speed or polish.

3 questions

Case Review

Team Review

Our team scores your case independently against a shared rubric before we discuss it together.

Product Sense Interview

Interview

A deep dive into your case and your product judgment: how you find the right problem, how you know it is worth solving, and what you have chosen not to build.

60 min

Execution & Collaboration

Interview

How you ship with engineering and design: cutting scope under constraint, defending trade-offs, and keeping a team aligned on the metric.

45 min

References

Reference Check

We’ll reach out to your references for a brief conversation about outcomes you owned together.

Offer

We’ll present you with an offer to join the team.

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